Seyfarth Synopsis: The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has provided a helpful guide to employers seeking to defeat class and collective certification of claims that employees worked off-the-clock and skipped meal and rest periods in order to meet productivity standards.
“We can’t get our work done in the time you’ve allotted” is a common refrain offered by wage-hour plaintiffs and their counsel in off-the-clock cases. They invoke this to argue that productivity standards or timeliness requirements, particularly against the backdrop of policies or practices limiting overtime, constitute a common issue that should allow them to pursue wage-hour claims on a class or collective basis because those standards or requirements caused them to work overtime off-the-clock or through meal and rest breaks.
But last week in Brayman v. Keypoint Government Solutions, Inc., the Tenth Circuit provided a helpful roadmap as to why such allegations may be insufficient to certify a class or collective action.
There, the Tenth Circuit vacated a Colorado district court’s decision to grant certification to a class of employees for claims alleging off-the-clock work and meal and rest period violations under California law. In doing so, the court reaffirmed the principle that class certification should not be granted in the absence of a vigorous predominance analysis under Rule 23(b)(3), showing that factual issues can be determined by reference to a predominance of common, rather than...
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